Welcome to VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.
In this edition, we travel to Vietnam’s capital, arguably the only place where the nation’s favourite noodle soup dish, phở, tastes “truly good.” You can also treat yourself to an energising performance by a Ukrainian band who are using folk songs and captivating “ethno-dramas” to fight for a culture under siege.
We’re celebrating VoiceMap’s 12th birthday this month. Phở became a jumping off point to explore our catalogue of over 70,000 locations, created by a constellation of publishers from around the world. In this edition you’ll hear stories about… soup – in audio tours from Tbilisi, Tokyo, LA, and Geneva.
It reminded me of the nourishing power of storytelling, wherever we are.
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For your sense of ritual | Ukrainian ‘ethno-drama’ at Big Ears
“Maintaining a folk tradition in a time when culture is under attack” was the impetus for starting a Ukrainian folk collective, says YAGÓDY’s founding member, Zoriana Dybovska. She began making “home expeditions” to gather Ukrainian folk songs in 2016, combing the country’s repertoire, and learning a few new instruments along the way.
The band is now among an eclectic selection of artists performing this weekend at Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee – “arguably the classiest, most diverse festival in the country,” according to Rolling Stone magazine.
Music publicist Eric Alper describes YAGÓDY’s performances, which “crackle with ritual energy (…) and demand your full attention.”
“This is not background music. YAGODY’s sound draws from deep regional Ukrainian folk traditions, gathered across the country through years of active field research. That source material, songs about love, life, and memory, gets filtered through a lineup of voices, accordion, drums, percussion, Tibetan bowl, and the drymba, a Hutsul mouth harp from the Carpathians. The result is something genuinely singular.”
Dybovska founded YAGÓDY with a group of actresses, two years after fleeing her home in the wake of Russian hostilities. Their music remains proudly untranslated.
“We must fight not only on the battlefields on the ground – but the cultural front also,” says Dybovska.
🔗 Watch YAGÓDY’s exhilarating four-minute “ethno-drama” – part concert, part ceremony – or the full live session at KEXP in Seattle. They’re in good company at Big Ears this weekend, where “genre-bending guzhengist Wu Fei” from our edition about jam sessions on the Silk Road is also performing. You might also enjoy the parallels with Abel Selaocoe’s electric performances, or hearing how Rosalía tackled insipid AI-generated music by drawing on enough linguistic and musical traditions to confuse even the brightest of bots. Read Alper’s write-up, Ukrainian Folk Collective YAGODY Bring Their Ancestral Sound to KEXP, here.
For your sense of devotion | The purist’s guide to phở in Hanoi
If you’re under the impression that enjoying Vietnam’s quintessential noodle soup, phở, is the same as understanding it, writer Connla Stokes’ advice is simple: “Please book a ticket to Hanoi and begin serving your time.”
In The purist’s guide to phở in Hanoi, Stokes takes us through everything from the murky origins of the dish (was it Chinese? French?) to the use of unorthodox condiments (“vulgar”) and the “regrettable scenario” of eating phở in the afternoon. (“Everyone knows it lacks a certain poetry.”)
The ambitious essay is a tribute not only to phở, but also to three extraordinary writers who wrote about it “with wit, nostalgia, and devotion.” It’s also peppered with bone dry humour.
“Phở has always been food for the people, and it does not require glamorous surroundings. A plastic stool and a small table – or perhaps another plastic stool serving as the table – are perfectly adequate.
Nor must we expect the owners to smile – or, heaven forbid, look chirpy. They may not even look directly at their customers. This should not be mistaken for disdain. They are concentrating on the making of phở.”
Stokes quotes the journalist Vũ Bằng’s description of phở’s mysterious pull: “like the drifting incense of the Hương Pagoda, urging one’s steps upward, drawing you to climb toward the inner temple and then wander onward again.
I’ve slurped my fair share of noodles on traffic-choked roadsides with my knees around my ears, but I can’t say that two months in Hanoi was enough to show me the “poetry,” or encourage devotion to phở. The capital and I never saw eye to eye.
This is where Connla’s advice on finding the “perfect” bowl of phở is oddly comforting.
“One day, far away, you will suddenly find yourself thinking of Hanoi – the drowsy lakes, the magnificent trees, the narrow streets at dawn – and somewhere in the middle of that memory will appear the taste of a particular broth.
Ah, what I would do to be there now, eating that bowl of phở, you will think.
And you already know where you will go first when you return.
Back to that bowl.
Back to phở.”
🔗 Read The purist’s guide to phở in Hanoi. If you’re short on time, begin at Chapter V, on the secret of the broth.
For your sense of soup | Greater than the sum of its parts
One of the most exciting things about watching VoiceMap’s catalogue of audio tours grow is the ever-expanding database about… everything. If a subject lights someone up – much like phở does for Connla Stokes – then you can bet it’ll offer someone else a moment of insight or reflection – or joy, or connection, or another of the countless things that humans get from stories.
What happens when you search VoiceMap for stories about soup? Here are a few highlights.
Who knew that the origins of what was Independence Day for Geneva (before it joined the Swiss confederation) lie in the quick-thinking Lady Royaume, who poured a kettle of boiling soup on the Savoyard soldiers during a night raid? Local guide Ariel Peter Haemmerlé shares the unlikely story in his VoiceMap, Geneva’s Left Bank: From the Flower Clock to the Escalade Fountain. Listen here.
If you’re a fan of food like noodle soup – and that potent, hard-to-pin-down flavour that’s become known as umami – Laura sheds light on the origins of “the fifth flavor,” and how it became the foundation of Japanese cooking, in her VoiceMap of Tokyo. Browse the tour, Everlasting Edo: A Guide to Nihonbashi’s History.
Tbilisi-based Shawn Basey goes beneath the surface of the largest theatre hall in the Caucasus, the Shota Rustevli Theatre complex, on his tour of Georgia’s capital. Below its revolving stage, 1200 electric light bulbs, guest rooms, and billiard room, there was once a soup kitchen, which later became the club for the Georgian Writers’ Union.
Listen to the vivid description of what used to be a “celebration of nationality,” where Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, and Russian troupes all performed. You can also browse the whole tour, Rustaveli Avenue: Roam down Tbilisi’s historic main street into the Old Town.
The “rock’n roll mecca” on LA’s Sunset Strip – where Vincent Minelli proposed to Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe went on her first blind date with Joe DiMaggio – was also the place where John Belushi ate his very last meal. What did he order at table 16 that evening? Lentil soup.
Listen to the story from this “SoCal‑born” husband‑and‑wife team’s VoiceMap, Sunset Strip Walking Tour: The Ultimate Guide to the Must-see Sights.
Until next time, thanks for travelling with us!
Best Wishes,
Claire van den Heever
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